Blog

An update from our CEO John Lowe

Posted June 12, 2015 by jenis

We have found Listeria in our production facility again.

We discovered the Listeria through routine swabbing as part of our monitoring program.

We stopped production earlier this week and have been investigating where and how it may have re-entered the facility. We have a theory and are testing that theory. We don’t yet have a timeline for the resumption of production.

Since resuming production in our kitchen on May 13, 2015, we have been testing every batch of ice cream we have made and holding it until we learned that the testing did not detect any Listeria. So it is with complete confidence that I can say all of the ice cream that has been served in our shops since reopening on May 22 has been safe and is 100% Listeria-free.

We are closing our scoop shops temporarily because we don’t have enough ice cream to keep them stocked. After we eradicate the Listeria and have thoroughly tested the facility, we will restart making ice cream. Sometime thereafter we’ll announce a date when our shops will reopen.

While we would most certainly prefer that Listeria never enter our facility, we do take solace in the fact that our protocols and testing have worked: we found the Listeria before it got into ice cream we served. This finding and our ceasing of production enables us the opportunity to prevent contamination and continue to ensure the safety of our customers.